


Release me

by Draccon



Category: K-pop, Six of Crows Series - Leigh Bardugo, The Grisha Trilogy - Leigh Bardugo, VIXX
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst with a Happy Ending, Based on a Tumblr Post, Dark Fantasy, Grishaverse, M/M, Multi, Mutual Pining, Other, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-09
Updated: 2019-03-12
Packaged: 2019-10-25 00:14:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,737
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17714378
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Draccon/pseuds/Draccon
Summary: "Tell me how does it feel have all the power between your fingers..."Hakyeon is running away from Shu Han. He's a heartrender, but also subject from experiments around jurda and the origin of grisha powers. He just didn't thought about finding a few others like him in the way...//yeah, this is self indulgent. I always wished to read something about VIXX and Grisha...





	1. Hakyeon

**Author's Note:**

> To @itaekwoons, @noxastrae on Twitter  
> Sorry for any typos... But bear with me, please. I'll try to update at every 15 days, because life sucks.

Hakyeon plunged among the trees, his boots sliding on wet ground, a mixture of melting snow, pine leaves and dirt. The simple act of breath made his chest ache and his head throb blurring with colourful small bright spots in his vision. He stopped and stared up at the sky, looking at those bright stars he had never seen before with an somelike sadness in his heart which would only be possible at that height of the mountain in one of the many trails lost between the border of Ravka and Shu Han. The sound of footsteps in the snow frightened him and made him stumble falling clumsy on his side making the bright spots in his vision blend with the stars in the sky. He just lay like that, panting and lying on the forest ground, peering through the strands of hair glued to his forehead. He felt his fingers get wet while crunching the snow between them just like the red fake old kefta he wore, borrowed as every single of belongings he had right now, a clearly signal of a Ravkan Grisha.

He had a coat until a while back but stupidly dropped it and even knowing that he now ran the risk of dying of hypothermia, he preferred that death rather than go back to the hands of those who were at all costs trying to capture him. Never again would any of them touch a finger on him, ever again. He should get up and keep running but there were Shu Han mercenaries scattereda everywhere. He could feel them moving through the trees, listening not only the muffled footsteps in the snow but the sound of their hearts pounding with adrenaline. He thought he heard a whisper somewhere on the left. No, he tells himself. Don’t listen to their hearts. Hakyeon then tried to get up, slowly, quietly. A twig broke. And hell unfolded from there.

He turned on his steps quickly. A dagger appeared in his direction, an impeccable but mortal-looking work of art, too close to his face for his taste, followed by one of the mercenaries with raven hair and gold eyes filled with cruelty and coldness that matched the sword he carried in one of his hands.

“Shit!" Hakyeon said.

He threw himself aside, slipped and fell, breaking bushes as he dragged away, expecting the sword would strike him at any moment. He got up, puts his hands close to his body, breathing heavily. He saw the bright tip that once again tried to hit him and dodged the attack in a graceful movement, with such lightness that it was more like the steps of a dance. Adjusting his posture, he fought against himself to not to use his power but the desire was stronger than himself.

He inclined his head, hands clenched into fists, eyes dilated so that his eyes looked black, and a disturbing smile on his face stared at the mercenary. "Drop the sword."

The mercenary’s face became expressionless, lost in his own mind, listening to some kind of distant music trapped in some kind of illusion and then, he dropped his sword. Hakyeon held the sword at once. Leading one of hands to his own eyes, he rubbed them and looking back with brown eyes at the mercenary that was now laying in the snow and a piercing white pain fell on him, a punishment for doing what he did.

“Sorry about that,” he whispered, between a grunt of pain. “this is better than death. And I saw so much already... ”

Then Hakyeon felt a shadow fall on his face. Another mercenary. Tall, emerging from the midst of the trees, armed with a curved sword. There was no time to protect or use the sword. Or get out of his way. Hakyeon’s mouth opened, but no word was heard.

The two of them fell together on the wet ground and rolled across the land, their skin being torn by branches, exchanging punches and growling at each other. Hakyeon hit hard the root of a tree and his ears began to ring. The two continued to roll, the world spinning as Hakyeon tried to ward off the dizziness and at the same time let go of the mercenary. There was no way of making both stop.

No, he couldn’t miss this chance, he couldn’t have come this far to be dragged back to Ahmarat Jen. These thoughts came almost like a desperate cry for himself as he slid toward the edge of a cliff. His hands tried to cling to the wet ground and found only dirt and snow. His fingers clung to nothingness. He was beginning to fall and then let out a moan.

His hands closed around something. A tree root protruding from the earth at the edge of the abyss. He swayed in space, exhausted, but holding as tightly as he could.

He was still alive. Alive and free. He tried to stand up to the edge, but he couldn’t. There was a huge weight around his legs. And then, he looked down.

The deep abyss. Deep and with a furious river hissing down, one of those formed by the snow of the highest places melted as the temperature increased and gaining speed as it descended the mountain. Here and there a tree clung to a crevice between the rocks, growing in the void and spreading the leaves in space. This was bad, and the worst was the mercenary Shu, swinging softly, his hands tightening on Hakyeon’s ankle.

He was in a bad situation. But nothing compared to the idea of returning to Ahmarat, to return to the life that was before. Better to die than find those eyes again, hear that purring voice, the sweet taste in his own mouth with rust-coloured tooth and the hot sensation burning in his veins forever. Now his hands were growing tired, his arms were burning. It didn’t look like the mercenary would get rid of him.

A man would rather save himself than kill an enemy. The problem was that this enemy was sworn by duty and money, and Hakyeon doubted he would owe a debt of gratitude to him above those two things. And then, Hakyeon kicked with maximum force using the free heel. It was a poor idea, because now his hands slipped little by little. Now the root he was in it was close to the end, and what was left seemed to break at any moment. He tried to think of something other than pain in his hands, pain in his arms and the weight. He was going to fall. In a cold river, in a horrible death.

But this death would not be so horrible compared to the days of his life until that moment. So he planted his foot firmly on the rock, took a deep breath one last time and threw himself into the void with all his might. His hands dropped them and for a moment he heard the mercenary’s cry as Hakyeon fell free.

Quickly. The sides of the rock passed at full speed: snow, grey stone, and moss green. The wind whipped his hair, tugged at his clothes, snatched up his breath. He watched the mercenary hit one of the rocks near the water. Hakyeon wished he was dead.

The water came to meet him. It hit his body and wrenched the air from his lungs. It took out the senses and pulled him down into the depths, into the cold and the dark.

 

 


	2. Wonsik

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for not post before. I'm kinda busy... But here it is. Ok, so I'll try to explain Grisha through the chapters as I advance the plot and characters. Any doubts just ask and I'll explain. 
> 
> Now we have a [map](http://grishaverse.com/static/img/grisha-map/static-map-new%402x.png)! If you want to have a notion about the world.  
> Oh! Thank you for the kudos and comment! Thank you and thank you again... And sorry for any typos.

The faint sound of water in his ears. It was the first sound. The constant sound of water, the rustling of the leaves, the whistle and strange singing coming from the birds. Birds singing as messengers of the end of winter or the signal he was just going mad in some weird dream.

Hakyeon opened his eyes, just a little. Strong, palid white light came through the leaves. So, this it was supposed to be dead? Why did it hurt so much? His whole left side throbbed. He tried to breath and the only thing he could do was choke, cough water and mud. He groaned, leaned on his hands and knees, dragged himself out of the river, panting, with clenched teeth. He rolled over the moss, the mud, and the rotting sticks on the water's edge.

He stood for a moment, looking up at the sky. His breath wheezing in his aching throat.

"I'm still alive", he croaked.

He was still alive, though. Drenched and stretched out on his back, he smiled at his luck. The wind blew through the rotting bank of the river, and the smile broke quickly. He could be alive, but _staying_ alive was something completely different. He sat up shuddering in pain. Leaning on a tree trunk, he unbuttoned part of the kefta and spied some of the damage. Every Heartrender has one or two knowledge of healing but this wasn’t his specialisation – though, Healers and Heartrenders share the same order in Ravkan Army - and when he spied the damage, he sighed realising that it was sensitive to touch, with coloured bruises in infinite tones of blue and purple that was disappearing as he drew his fingers on it. But by the saints, he was exhausted. Even with part of the pain subsiding slowly, something was not fading... The aching to put a little bit of Jurda Parem in his mouth. The thought of biting just a piece of Jurda, just a little bit, the sweet taste in his lips. The bastards had turned him into a Jurda Parem addict.

It wasn’t difficult at all. Hakyeon closed his eyes for a few seconds, a sigh escaping from his lips as memories emerged behind closed eyelids. He remembers walking through a huge field of orange flowers in Novyi Zem, his fingers trailing the petals of flowers. Fields such as these existed in the hills and were the bulk of Novyi Zem's economy. The dried petals were chewed and used as a stimulant throughout the rest of the world, staining the fingers and teeth of those who use it.

Jurda Parem on the other hand is a drug made by a chemist named Bo Yul-Bayur. Transformed into powder, sweeter than Jurda and lethal to anyone except Grisha. Although the intentions behind his creation were good the result was the opposite: Wanting to create a drug that would hide his son’s Grisha powers, what he created would actually increase the power of any Grisha. Hakyeon helped in the research and like Bo feared that his government would use this for war. Their fear showed real when Bo Yul-Bayur died. Hakyeon then was forced to decode the annotations around the research along with Hongbin. Both were arrested and tortured when they refused to do it in an endless cycle until a few nights ago.

"Hongbin ..." he whispered dreamily sweet while a shudder runs through his body towards the idea that Hongbin was there, memories from another life, exhaustion, and the beginning of abstinence from Jurda, believing that the footsteps he was hearing coming in his direction was from Hongbin. Such belief proved wrong when a hand rested on his cheeks. Warm and comfortable. A peaceful sensation even though there is a thought in the back of his mind saying he shouldn’t be like that. A hand touches his wrist, his neck kindly.

"Wonsik, I said we shouldn’t.... Woah, what it is this?"

"He's alive ... For the saints, I can hardly feel his pulse. Jae... "A deeper voice made itself heard. Hakyeon concluded that it was two men talking and one of them had a deep voice while the other was something like pure sunshine. He tried to move, to make something but he was so tired. "Tsc ... I can’t imagine how he got here." The deep voice made itself heard again. "It seems like somebody is pretending to be some Grisha of Ravka. Although, I must admit that this is the shabbiest copy I've ever encountered of kafta from the Corporalki order. "

Hakyeon heard a laugh. "Admit ... You shivered thinking he was a real Heartrender."

"Jae... Come on.”

“Shit, we have to get him out of here. We’ll take him to the camp and by Sankta Alina, pray that he won’t die."

Hakyeon heard the footsteps retreating and his mind gave up trying to keep consciousness. Mercenaries or not, Hakyeon was too tired to care.

 

Someone touched Hakyeon again. A firm hand turning his face. Along with a slight sting running through the skin of the arm. Then another and another. Fine and painless as the touch of a needle. Hakyeon moved one of his fingers in response. He heard the soft crackling of wood in a campfire, the warmth of furs against his body feeling comfortable for the first time in days.

He opened his eyes.

The light of a simple fire, weak as it was, blinded him. He tried to get up, but a sudden dizziness set him back. One hand pushed him without any delicacy, indicating the need for prolonged rest. Hakyeon accepted the imposition of the subtle touch. He closed his eyes and opened them again, slowly, waiting for his to get used to the clarity.

The image around him slowly formed. A huge cave with a nearby fire pit. He stared at the flames for a few seconds without noticing that someone was watching him closely.

"I swear if you try to get up again, I'll knock you out and I’ll do it without regrets." Someone was sitting next to him and playing with a thin dagger spinning between his fingers. A dagger with a sheath too ornamented to belong to a simple mountain hermit. The man looked at Hakyeon and then at the dagger and paused for a few seconds the movement of his fingers. "Okay, I know this sounded threatening," a warm smile appeared on his face. "Don’t worry, we're not bad. My name is Lee Jaehwan. "

 _'The voice that was pure sunshine,'_ Hakyeon thought. Trying to gather the strength to speak, he pushed the air out of his lungs, but all he could emit was a growl, which ended in a coughing crisis. Jaehwan dropped the knife and handed him a canteen and placed a metal container in his own lap opening the lid and making the familiar scent take over the place. Hunger made Hakyeon's belly grunt and instinctively, he picked up the a few pieces of dried meat and devoured them quickly. He drank from the water without hesitation, and when he finished, he felt much better.

"Thank you." He thanked him with extreme sincerity. "What's that on my arm?"

"Wonsikie's idea ...", Jaehwan spoke quickly. "He's good with needles and chemistry. Things that make boom boom! And he said to apply some of it on you. Medicine and this weird name... Acupuncture? Or something like that. "

"Wonsikie...", Hakyeon spoke feeling how the name sounded so right leaving his lips.

"He's out there," Jaehwan said as his gaze goes towards the entrance to the cave. "Probably hunting."

He said this with a strange regret. Whatever "Wonshikie" was doing, it had a much greater meaning than simply _hunting_. Hakyeon then allowed himself to rest for the first time. She shuffled under the covers and stared at the fire again.

"You never asked my name, Jaehwan."

"I didn’t think you meant it." Jaehwan got up and put some pieces of wood on the fire, making some sparkles rise. "It looks like you're running away. And names are dangerous things to say when you're running away from something."

Hakyeon said nothing. He remained silent while a sense of sleep dominated him little by little. "You're running away too," he said as he realized the quiet sound of a Jaehwan’s heart affirming his words. Jaehwan's smile followed, a cherished smile from ear to ear that closed his eyes.

"Yes... Everyone is running away from something, isn’t?" Jaehwan said in a cheerful tone, playing with a twig in his hands folding it into pieces at every word. "Take a rest."

"Hakyeon." The silence was broken smoothly with the tone of Hakyeon's voice.

"Rest then Hakyeon. Whatever you're running from, it can’t reach you here. "Lee Jaehwan remarked with such confidence and his face lit up accentuating his features in a beautiful way. Hakyeon couldn’t help but believe in the certainty these words convey, or in the beating of Jaehwan’s heart that he could hear in his ears like a song that never ceased to exist, a sweet lullaby causing him to go back to sleep.

************

The air escaped in a hot blast of Wonsik lips in contrast to the mountain cold. Not that he wasn't used to. Strangely, he liked the cold. He was crouched against the snow, motionless and silent with a long hunting rifle in his hands aiming at his target. He felt the forest breathing, alive and listened to thousands of sounds. The winter dragging undone beneath a blue sky and a pale sun. He concentrated on the next animal that moved cautiously. Delicious. The forest was silent except for the wind blowing through the trees in the form of a mysterious whisper.

And then he fired.

The sound echoed through the forest followed by the dry thud of something heavy against the snow.

"Sorry ..." He rested his hunting rifle on his shoulder and pulled a knife from his boot. Blood spilled beneath his hands and the snow. It would look good on a stew, maybe with some mushrooms. He sighed and looked at the dead deer once more after finishing his not-so-worthy job of cutting pieces of meat from the animal. He did not make his way back to the cave so suddenly, but he began to whistle a song, the notes slowly echoing through the place. He removed three small glass bottles of strange substances from his coat and mixed with some of the blood of the deer. The mixture combusted making the sweet smell rise in soft fingers of white smoke. He set one of the bottles near the deer in the snow and waited on his knees. The light and the little heat of the day seemed to go away as the minutes passed. It was not long before they arrived. They emerged silently from the middle of the trees and slowly walked toward him. He stood, hands clasped behind his back.

"Have they never told you to not call the spirits? ", The first spoke.

"It surprises me that a practitioner of small science calls us," the second spirit said.

"…Or offer us sacrifices." Concluded the third.

They were voices like countless forest sounds.

"I may be a Grisha, a practitioner of little science, but I still have my beliefs..." Wonshik replied. "As for the sacrifice... Take as a token of my respect. "

The spirits crouched before the deer, looked up, and stared blankly at him.

"Only three?", Wonsik asked curiously.

The first spoke. "Each year a smaller number of us cease to exist. It is a peaceful mountain, after all. The same can’t be said of the lands below. There are only us. A few more winters will pass and we will also cease to exist. None of us will be left to heed your call.

Wonsik nodded sadly.

"Any news?"

"We have heard that a man fell from a cliff and survived, running away from people who want him at all costs, able to control minds with few words, and carries with him a heart full of despair and fear for someone left behind, but we did not put faith in these rumors. "

"No one can do that. Control minds? Madness. "

"Nikolai disappeared again." Said the second spirit.

Wonsik frowned.

"Nikolai always disappears. That's what he does. "

"An empty throne does not rule alone, _dezertir_. "

"And a throne occupied by a tyrant neither," Wonshik preferred to ignore the tone the spirit used while speaking the word dezertir. "Or do you think Ravka in civil war is Nikolai's fault? What else?”

"You should help your newest acquisition, deserter. Looks like he woke up."

"Maybe your luck will change." Said the other spirit. "perhaps…”

"See yourself. Hidden on the border, waiting for death, believing that this is the only form of redemption ... "the third spirit spoke and leaned forward. "Maybe that's your chance.”

Wonsik stared at the spirit silently.

"The saints gave you a chance ..."

Wonsik frowned. He would probably beat the shit out of Jaehwan for deciding to help a complete stranger he encountered on the bank of a river. He knew well that Heartrenders were problems, since he met some of Ravka's army, _soldat_ just like he once was. He had met two Heartrenders twins from Shu Han, which sent shivers down his spine. Especially as one of them had an incredibly good memory used to _torture those around with lousy recitals of poetry_. The most _unlikely_ kind of torture. Part of him was from Shu Han as well. A land that he has never even laid eyes on. He also believed the words his father once said: ‘yuyeh sesh’. Despise your heart. Do what needs to be done - be cruel if you have to.

That old phrase became something that him relied on as he tried to extricate himself from what he wanted and commit to what – he though- needed to be done in a country that after many years became his home.

"What are you going to do, deserter? " One of the spirits asked.

Wonshik thought for a moment.

"I am going to help him. Maybe it's a good idea to go down the mountain ... "

The spirits nodded. They didn’t show whether if his decision was good or bad. They didn’t care.

"Farewell, then, deserter," said the spirits in unison, "perhaps for the last time."

"I very much doubt it. "

None of them paid attention to that answer. They stood up and walked away from the dead deer, fading into the forest gradually. Soon they were gone, but Wonsik had to admit that they had been more useful than he dared to wait. They had given him a goal.

He then took what he could from the hunt and made the way back, the sounds of the birds and the wind musically filling the air. He remembered other occasions and other mountains, places, people, and conversation that it would be good to revisit.


End file.
